What's your editing programme for handling and editing the Canon VIXIA HF G20 AVCHD recordings? I use Mac and prefer Avid Media Composer, but Canon HF G20 AVCHD output(MPEG4 output is also supported) is hard to be perfectly recognized by some video editing software like FCP, FCE, iMovie, Avid Media Composer, etc. If you are considering purchasing the Canon HF G20, and also use Avid MC for editing, following questions that will help you decide:

1. We understand that Avid MC can import AVCHD - but apparently not all flavors work well. Has anyone used MC with the Canon AVCHD?2. Perhaps using a 3rd party converter is the better way to go? Any suggestion as to a good converter?3. What are we going to lose in quality and time by needing to use the import or external converter?YES! Importing Canon Vixia HF G20 to Avid Media Composer for editing on Mac is not so easy as HF G20 users thought. Avid MC v5 doesn't support Avid Media Acess(AMA). Linking AMA in v6, and transcoding is much faster, while, it still takes a relative long time to import AVCHD video.

Another option is to use a 3rd party convert to convert the .mts files into .mov with a DNx wrapper. Brorsoft Mac Canon Vixia HF AVCHD to Avid MC Converter is the one I choose. Fast convert AVCHD .mts from Canon HF G20 to DNxHD .mov files, which will fast import into Media Composer. As for video quality, at least I cannot distinguish any loss by naked eyes.

You can follow the guide on converting Canon Vixia HF G20 AVCHD to Avid MC on Mac

Step 1: After the launching the Canon AVCHD Converter, load your MTS files to it from your camcorder. Join several mts clips ticking the “Merge into one” box.